


The Wheel Turns

by magicalbean



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18821905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalbean/pseuds/magicalbean
Summary: The lion yields to no one. Not even the dragon. All the gold in the world could not pay the Lannisters' debts, but still they buy another day.A little spin on the events of S8E5. Spoilers, of course.





	The Wheel Turns

**Author's Note:**

> I hate Cersei so much that I literally wrote this out of pure anger and spite because I'm so mad about her stupid ending.

Cersei stands at the window of the Red Keep. The smell of burning flesh creeps into her nose, somehow more repugnant than the sounds of people screaming. _Children_ screaming.  
  
Her child won’t have the chance for even that much. Not if she stays. The Red Keep has never fallen, but she still sees fire when she closes her eyes. And it’s coming closer.  
  
All Cersei can think about is the stories of Aerys Targaryen. Of how delighted the Mad King would be if he learned his daughter had carried out his dying wish.  
  
_Burn them all_.  
  
The door bangs off of the wall, and for a moment, Cersei thinks perhaps she will find death at end at the end of a spear instead of dragon’s breath.  
  
But before she can figure out which might be preferable, she sees him. His gore-splattered clothes, the glint of a golden hand. Eyes of emerald, hazy from pain but the mirror image of her own.  
  
He came into this world with her, and here he is at the end of it all, gathering her up in his arms. How right it is that he is here with her, to die with her.  
  
“Come with me,” he says.  
  
Jaime takes her by the hand and walks her through the keep. He is cold. His hand is rough, slick with sweat and blood. He smells of ash and salt. She slips on the dark puddles he leaves in his wake, but he holds her tight. “We have to keep moving,” he says.  
  
Sun-bleached stone shivers and cracks around them. Smoke fills the trembling halls. He takes her down and down and down. And then, a breeze. She blinks back the tears in her eyes and looks up. Wind off of the sea, not thick with smoke and soot. It’s an exit. A way out of the keep.  
  
And down the pebbled beach is a little dinghy.  
  
She steps back, shaking her head.  
  
Jaime has not let go of her, but he stops when she does. Moves with her. They move as one entity. She pulls, he pushes. He gives, she takes.  
  
“I know. It’s crazy, but it’s a chance, and we may not get another. Cersei. Please.”  
  
It’s hopeless if it’s truly come to this. Far above, the dragon shrieks loud enough to shatter the heavens. The cacophony of battle cries and butchery pierce through her like a spear, a fang, a _tusk_.  
  
If it had just been her and Jaime, she thinks he might have stayed with her in the tower and slaughtered any man or beast that dared to come for her. But their pride remains. Cersei presses a hand to the swell of her belly.  
  
She climbs into the dinghy. Jaime grunts, bleeding and wheezing, pebbles rolling under his feet and into the surf. He strains against the little wooden hull until it takes to the water, and with a graceless tumble, he falls into the boat alongside her. She wants to hold him tight and listen to his whispered reassurances. But there is no time. He takes one oar, and his golden hand thumps uselessly against the other. For a moment, he stares at it, almost as if he’d forgotten it was not flesh. Cersei takes the oar in her own trembling hands. “Go steady,” Jaime tells her. “With me.”  
  
Tears rush down her face. Her paddling is frantic, erratic. A single stroke takes her breath away. She doesn’t know how to do this, she _can’t_ do this --  
  
Jaime stills her with a brush of his good hand against her face. “Row in time with your breaths. Come on. Breathe with me.”  
  
She breathes.  
  
Salt stings her face. Smoke rises overhead. They begin to row in tandem, and the current takes them out into the bay. From dragon back, perhaps they are no more than a speck on the waves -- just part of the wreckage. Red foam and soaked, charred oak split across the bow. A sudden, wild hope seizes her that she might see Euron’s body among the debris.  
  
Blackened corpses float past them. Her oar turns over a cadaver. She peers down at its face. Hollow, fleshless, a silent scream from an ashen tongue.  
  
It isn’t her. It isn’t Jaime. It isn’t the baby. She rows.  
  
She rows, but her arms are shaking and leaden.  
  
She finally asks, “Where are we going?”  
  
“Away from here.”  
  
That is enough. It doesn’t matter that they have no map to guide them, no compass or navigator. She is with him, he is with her. They are as they were always meant to be--  
  
Together.  
  
-  
  
Cersei has never known torture like her penance. She is steadfast in her belief, although being tossed about in a storm at sea is firmly seated at second-worst.  
  
The dinghy barely survived, but the storm washed them to shore. She remembers waking up on the gritty sand, throat raw and hair salt-sticky. And Jaime. Jaime’s hand wrapped around her ankle, blinking up at her blearily as if for the first time when she cries out his name.  
  
She remembers the moment. The sweet relief of finding breath in his lungs, warmth in his lips. She remembers waking up in this strange new place and knowing that they would endure.  
  
She remembers the aimless wandering. Dehydration and hunger, feet blistering and limbs failing. She remembers Jaime, always urging her forward, and wondering how he had the strength. She remembers finding the port and the traders. She remembers stripping herself of her rings, her crown, her ruined silks -- and Jaime, removing his golden hand.  
  
Cersei sits on a sun-soaked porch in Pentos, watching as a tiny child with a halo of golden curls tumbles with a house cat. A little ribbon on a stick dangles over the cat’s head, and it swats lazily at the toy. Cersei sips at her wine, and she smiles.  
  
She only smiles for her cub now -- the only part of her life left that reminds her of Jaime.  
  
Jaime, who came back for her. Jaime, who gave her strength. Jaime, who nodded to her frantic whispers that he must be the first to hold the baby.  
  
Jaime, who broke that promise and so many more.  
  
Her son climbs into her lap, little fingers touching the hair that falls past her shoulders. She holds this last memento of Jaime tightly. “My little prince,” Cersei says, and he glows.  
  
“What kind of prince am I?” he asks.  
  
And so, Cersei tells him the tale he has heard so many times before. The tale of the Usurper who turned their beautiful city to rubble and stole away his birthright. “Though the people live in fear of the Mad Queen, in their hearts they know you as their true sovereign. They live for the day they see you sail across the Narrow Sea, so at last they can hoist their banners of red and gold.” She lifts him by the chin to hold his head high and proud, and bright green eyes shine up  at her. “And one day, Westeros will rally at your call. You are a lion, and you will take your rightful place above them all.”


End file.
